Public Citizen Sues to Expose Shadowy Fundraising Effort for 250th Anniversary
WASHINGTON — Today, Public Citizen filed a lawsuit to compel the National Park Service to release key documents related to the establishment of a nonprofit group that enabled members of the Trump administration and its allies raise money for 250th anniversary events outside the public spotlight.
In the run-up to the 250th anniversary celebrations, the Trump administration awarded more than $103 million in federal contracts and grants to a group of politicized entities under the control of Trump administration officials and political allies, according to a June report from Public Citizen and the Revolving Door Project. Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump has been personally involved in the fundraising operation, regularly asking about companies and individual donors and pushing for larger donations.
Public Citizen’s lawsuit seeks:
- A copy of the “master cooperative agreement” entered into by the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, and the National Park Foundation to authorize the National Park Foundation to use the services of Freedom 250 LLC to raise money
- Contract documents for the $68 million grant to the National Park Foundation for “significant events to commemorate the nation’s semiquincentennial.”
“Behind the scenes of the 250th anniversary lurked a host of corporate interests seeking to influence U.S. government policy,” said Alan Zibel, research director with Public Citizen, author of the report. “ Trump and his cronies appear to have planned the anniversary celebrations in a way that would avoid public disclosure of the size of corporate contributions as well as the identities of contractors used to run the celebrations. Making public the details of this influence operation is necessary to ensure such egregious abuses do not happen again.”
Further Reading: MAGA 250! $103M in Federal Contracts Flow to Trumpified “Freedom 250” Events – June 2026
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